


rise like the break of dawn

by anabel



Category: Brave (2012), Frozen (2013)
Genre: F/F, First Meetings, Romance, Soulmarks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-27 23:38:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5069302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anabel/pseuds/anabel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elsa's soulmark says "It's not fair!", which she's always thought is, well, not exactly fair.</p><p>Anna points out that at least it doesn't say "Carrots".</p>
            </blockquote>





	rise like the break of dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dragons_and_angels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragons_and_angels/gifts).



Ever since she can remember, Elsa has had three words emblazoned on the inside of her forearm. Three little words, which made her mother’s eyes twinkle, and made her father laugh. 

(Her mother’s arm says “You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen,” in a nearly unreadable scrawl. Her father’s says “Flatterer,” in laughing letters.)

Whoever _Elsa’s_ soulmate is, they’re going to announce themselves with the immortal words, “It’s not fair!” Probably in a temper, if the spikily aggravated handwriting is any clue.

(Anna says that at least it’s not “Carrots”, like hers. Elsa has to admit that she has a point.)

*~*

Growing up in seclusion means that Elsa’s had very little chance to encounter anyone who might say “It’s not fair!” to a princess or a queen. Even once her coronation and the events surrounding it bring her back into contact with the outside world, however, her first meetings tend to proceed along well-worn tracks. The first words she hears from any new person are invariably polite, and end in a hushed ‘Your Majesty’. 

At least she _has_ words, Elsa tells herself sometimes. There are people who don’t, or whose words disappear before they ever meet their soulmate. Soulmates can die in childhood. Perhaps some people simply never had a soulmate. At least somewhere out there in the great wide world there is a person who looks down at an arm with Elsa’s unknowing words emblazoned on it.

And it’s not as though Elsa has time to think about it too much. She has a kingdom to run, a younger sister to become reacquainted with, and so much paperwork to work through that she has half a mind to turn it into confetti and then into snowflakes. Perhaps her soulmate will appear when she is eighty, and so wrinkled even her wrinkles have wrinkles. 

Meanwhile, she skates in the village races, and trudges through the kingdom’s paperwork, and sits up late playing games with Anna and Kristoff, who is apparently “Carrots”. They are silly and affectionate with each other, and when Elsa’s heart aches a little watching them she quells it sternly, because Anna loves her too. 

Sometimes, though, Elsa plays hooky from paperwork and kingdom-ruling and goes up into the mountains for an afternoon. (Anna always hugs her and gives her a packed lunch.)

*~*

Perhaps building an ice-castle on a fine summer’s day is a trifle odd, but Elsa thinks that the best part of being Queen is having the leeway to be a trifle odd and not give a reindeer’s rear about it. She loves tromping up mountains, the breeze in her hair and the sun on her skin, and not a single person anywhere in sight. Over the past year, she’s learned to enjoy being around people, but she still loves to relax alone.

Today she’s adding a grand ballroom to her current ice-castle, all swooping crystal and majestic arches. It’ll be her last chance to work on it for a while, because two new embassies are due to arrive over the next week, and she has no fewer than four banquets to attend. (Luckily, attending is all she’ll be asked to do, because Anna loves organizing and has been hard at work for a month, ably assisted by Olaf. An enchanted snowman as her sister’s personal assistant… but that isn’t the oddest thing about Elsa’s kingdom, so perhaps it fits.)

Near sunset, Elsa is putting the finishing touches on the grand staircase, frowning in concentration, when the quietness of the mountaintop is suddenly broken.

“It’s not fair!”

Elsa jumps in surprise, her head coming around almost whiplash-fast, bringing her hands up in front of her in startlement. She’s heard no sound to warn her of anyone else being nearby, but there in front of her is a girl all in green, with wild red hair spilling over her shoulders.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, her heart racing – and then the girl’s words register. 

For a second Elsa wonders if it’s just a coincidence (“It’s not fair!” is not an _uncommon_ phrase, unlike that of Anna’s friend Sigrid, whose words are “Excuse me, which way did the talking snowman go?”, or Anna’s own.) 

But the girl blanched, and Elsa knows somehow that if she was to look at her arm, she’d see her own delicate, loopy handwriting.

“Maybe we should start again,” she says, as gracefully as she can, and then sinks down ungracefully into a heap on her ice-staircase.

The girl shrugs. There is something vibrant about her, not just her hair, but in the caught motion of her limbs; Elsa doesn’t think she is often still. “You built this.”

“Well, yes,” Elsa says, confused. Everyone in Arendelle knows of their queen’s ice-powers. There’s no call for surprise - but then, she hasn’t seen this girl before. Perhaps she is a trader from across the sea, or has traveled over the mountains, and only just arrived.

The girl watches her confusion, and then laughs suddenly, before sitting rather gingerly in one of Elsa’s ice-chairs. “We’ve heard stories! But I didn’t think it would be – like _this_.”

“Like what?” Elsa asks, still bewildered. “And who’s ‘we’?” (Perhaps not properly regal – but it seems impossible to be properly regal with this girl, even if she wasn’t… what she is.)

“I know magic,” the girl says, without clarifying on the ‘we’ question. “I’ve done magic. I turned my mother into a bear? By accident, really, it’s not like I _meant_ to do it. But this … you’ve … this is a castle! I widnae believed it, if someone had told me! It's not fair.” 

Elsa sorts through this, then asks what seems to be the relevant question. “A bear?” She folds her hands on her lap, feeling the words on her inner arm as if they were branded there. “Is she travelling with you?”

The girl stares at her – and then starts laughing. “No. I changed her back. She’s at home with my brothers and my new little sister – which is why you’ve got me instead of her. I’m pants at diplomacy but she says I have to learn sometime, and why not now, since she can’t travel.” 

Elsa puts fragments of knowledge together. The embassies that are arriving next week – one has evidently arrived early. “I’m Elsa,” she says.

“I’m Merida of DunBroch,” the girl says. Her smile is free and open, and Elsa catches her breath at the way it transforms her already striking face. 

They smile at each other for a minute. Elsa knows she should say something, but she feels suddenly shy – she, a Queen, who designs ice-castles for fun. But ice-castles are easy and familiar, and this beautiful girl who has dropped so suddenly into her life is her _soulmate_ , and that changes _everything_.

It’s Merida who makes the first move, getting up from her chair and coming to sit next to Elsa on the stair. Elsa makes room for her, and watches, breath caught in her throat, as Merida turns her arm over. 

_What are you doing here?_ is written, in delicate, loopy handwriting. 

Elsa turns her own left arm over, seeing the familiar _It isn’t fair!_ as if for the first time. 

“I suppose we should talk,” she says, her voice unaccountably hoarse.

Merida traces the words on Elsa’s arm with one long finger, making Elsa shiver. “Yes,” she agrees. “We should. But first…”

“Yes?” Elsa asks, when Merida doesn’t finish. 

Merida looks up, crinkles around her eyes. “May I?” she asks, sounding shyer than she has yet. 

Elsa doesn’t know what she means for a moment, but then Merida is leaning in, and suddenly she does. “Yes,” she breathes, “yes…” and kisses her soulmate in a mostly-finished ice-ballroom under the setting sun.

*~*

It is quite dark by the time they reach home. But Elsa is immune to the cold, and Merida dressed for the weather, so neither of them mind particularly. 

Anna takes one look at Elsa’s flushed cheeks, and the way her hand is intertwined with Merida’s, and jumps up with a cry, spilling a pile of banquet place settings to the floor. “You’ve found your Carrots!”

“Excuse me?!” Merida says.

“Inside joke,” Elsa tells her, blushing, then says to Anna, simply, “No. I’ve found my Merida.”

**Author's Note:**

> The first thing that Kristoff says to Anna is canonically "Carrots." :)


End file.
